Society's ChildS


Mr. Potato

Hysteria! Chinese official goes berserk after missing flight

Mike Krumboltz
Yahoo News
Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
A high-ranking official in the Chinese government lost his cool (and then some) when he and his family missed their flight at the Kunming Wujiaba International Airport in Yunnan Province, China.

A video shows the man, identified as Yan Linkun, standing near a boarding gate. There is no sound, but reports from Beijing Cream suggest he'd just learned that he and his family had has missed their flight - for the second time.

It's then that the temper is lost, never to be found again. Yan tosses computers, bangs on the desk and acts in a manner frowned upon at preschools, let alone highly trafficked airports. A crowd gathers to watch the spectacle, but nobody appears willing or able to stop the carnage.
Read More...
Eye 1

Colorado theater shooting suspect may plead insanity

P. Solomon Banda
ABC News
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
James Holmes
James Holmes during his first court appearance on July 23. Was he 'greenbaumed'?
Denver - Attorneys for the suspect in the deadly Colorado theater shooting said for the first time that they're considering entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on behalf of their client.

But they said in court papers made public Friday that they can't make their decision about their defense of James Holmes until the judge rules on their motion challenging the constitutionality of the state's insanity defense law.

The attorneys say the law is unfair to defendants who invoke it because it requires the disclosure of potentially incriminating information, such as mental health records, while those who plainly plead not guilty are not required to turn over any evidence.

Prosecutors have not announced whether they will pursue the death penalty, but they have 60 days from when a defendant enters a plea to do so. Holmes' hearing is March 12.

A legal expert said the maneuvering may be part of a defense strategy to make sure prosecutors never get their hands on a notebook that was purportedly sent by Holmes to his psychiatrist and included descriptions of a possible attack.

The notebook was the subject of court hearings in the months after the July shooting. Under state law, the notebook was protected because it was part of a doctor-patient relationship that Holmes had with the psychiatrist.

"That's why there's a big issue there, there's information that the prosecution may not be entitled to unless they plead not guilty by reason of insanity," said Karen Steinhauser, a Denver criminal defense attorney and law professor who is a former prosecutor.
Read More...
Cut

France proposes to cut school summer holidays

Henry Samuel
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
France's education minister has sparked uproar by proposing to to cut summer holidays from eight to six weeks to prevent the country's children falling further behind in international league tables.
Image
© ReutersVincent Peillon has further inflamed the teaching profession by announcing his intention to lop two weeks off France's long summer holidays
Paris - Reforming "le mammout" (mammoth) as France's huge, unwieldy, state education sector, is known, has been the bane of both Left and Right governments, with militant teachers' unions notoriously prepared to go on strike over even modest timetable changes.

Industrial action was matter of course last month when Vincent Peillon, education minister in President François Hollande's socialist government, announced he wanted to end the four-day week in primary schools to include a half day on Wednesday, which is currently totally off.

Now, he has further inflamed the teaching profession by announcing his intention to lop two weeks off France's long summer holidays.

French pupils currently spend among the longest daily number of hours in class in the world, while the number of days spent in school is among the lowest in all countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Read More...
Sherlock

Police search team digs in garden of nurse arrested over 'cannibal plot'

Gordon Rayner
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
A police search team dug up parts of the back garden of a house where a male nurse was arrested on suspicion of plotting to rape, kill and eat women, it has emerged.
Gilberto Valle, Dale Bolinger
Gilberto Valle and, inset, Dale Bolinger
Officers spent 15 hours searching the home of Dale Bolinger, 57, who was held last week by police investigating the British "mentor" of a New York policeman who used internet chat rooms to discuss torturing and cannibalising women.

The British contact of Gilberto Valle, who is currently on trial in the US, told him he had eaten two women in the past and offered to fly to America to help him butcher women.

Mr Bolinger, who has been suspended from his job at a hospital in Kent, and a 30-year-old man were arrested in Canterbury last week after Kent Police received information from police in the US.

Today neighbours living near Mr Bolinger's rented end-terrace home described how police used sniffer dogs and shovels in their search of the property.

One said: "The police came here last week at about seven o'clock in the morning. They had police dogs and there were forensic officers and plain clothed detectives.
Read More...
Whistle

Turner school lockdown drill scares students

Mike Benner,
KGW.com
Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:01 UTC

TURNER, Ore -- Some parents and students in the small town of Turner, near Salem, were upset after a lockdown drill sent kids running for their classrooms in terror Wednesday.

"I was on the playground and I see everyone screaming, running into their classrooms," said fifth-grader Carter Bourassa. "I turn around and there is this guy climbing over the fence with a stick."

Carter said the man was dressed in a hoodie.
Read More...
Sherlock

Marco McMillian dead: Openly gay Mississippi mayoral candidate's body found, homicide suspected

Holbrook Mohr
Huffington Post
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:07 UTC
Marco McMillian,
© ReutersReuters

Marco McMillian, 34, was running for mayor in Clarksdale, Miss. A suspect has been charged with murder in the case.
Jackson -- A 22-year-old man was charged with murder Thursday in the death of a mayoral candidate, whose body was found near a river levee in the Mississippi Delta this week.

The Coahoma County Sheriff's Department said in a news release that Lawrence Reed of Shelby was charged in the death of Marco McMillian, 34, a candidate for mayor of Clarksdale.

Campaign spokesman Jarod Keith says McMillian's bid was noteworthy because he may have been the first openly gay man to be a viable candidate for public office in Mississippi.

An investigation began Tuesday when McMillian's SUV slammed head on into another car on U.S. Highway 49 near the Coahoma and Tallahatchie county lines.

Reed was driving the car, but McMillian was not in it, according to sheriff's department spokesman Will Rooker.

McMillian's body was found the next day near the Mississippi River levee between Sherard and Rena Lara, Coahoma County Coroner Scotty Meredith has said.
Read More...
Apple Red

Toronto teacher sent home after handing out dirty jokes for assignment

Marco Chown Oved
The Toronto Star
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
Pages of one-liners given to a Grade 9/10 drama class included sexual violence, racism and dead babies.

Image
© FacebookJeff Jones, a drama teacher at Oakwood Collegiate Institute, is on home assignment after complaints about a school assignment that included pages of shock-value jokes.
A Toronto high school drama teacher accused of handing out seven pages of violent and sexual jokes - most involving blonde women - as part of a homework assignment has been put on home assignment, the public school board confirmed.

In early January, parents say Jeff Jones, a drama teacher at Oakwood Collegiate Institute on St. Clair Ave. W., distributed a lengthy handout filled with line after line of jokes about sexual violence, racism and dead babies.

Many of the more than 100 jokes cannot be printed in the Star.

It's unclear what the assignment was, as there were no instructions or questions included with the pages of jokes.

Parents said students in the Grade 9 and 10 class were told to pick five jokes and prepare a comedy skit about them. A Grade 12 student claimed the jokes were examples students were to follow when writing their own one-liners.
Read More...
2 + 2 = 4

British Columbia mother furious after son brings home graphic, sexual flip book from school

Darrell Bellaart
The National
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:12 UTC
Image
© screenshot
Canada, Nanaimo, B.C. - A Vancouver Island mom says she's outraged by a graphic flip book her Grade 8 son brought home from school that creatively shows a woman placing a condom on a man and then having sex.

The booklet, "Put on Something Sexy," depicts the sexual act when the pages are flipped rapidly and was given to the boy Jan. 31 as a prize in a sexual-health class, one of three sessions that also covered Internet safety and anti-bullying.

Cathy Sanders said her son showed her the book when he returned home from Nanaimo, B.C.'s, Wellington Secondary School.

"I was disgusted that he would be given something like that," she said.

School officials say they took steps to ensure materials used in the classes are age appropriate, but somehow unsuitable materials slipped through onto display tables used by students.

"There was at least one outside presenter on sexual health," said Donna Reimer, spokeswoman for the Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District.

"AIDS Vancouver Island had material they put on the table that students could pick up, if they wish."

Reimer said when an administrator spotted oral sex pamphlets, they were ordered removed from the display.

The school district wrote a letter of apology to parents, specifically in reference to the pamphlet that explained what oral sex is and how it's performed, which the vice-principal noticed.
Read More...
Sherlock

Elisa Lam death: Conspiracy theories surface as elevator video goes viral in China

Drishya Nair
International Business Times
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
Elisa Lam
© ReutersElisa Lam
As investigators await the results of a toxicology report to determine the cause of death of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam, a video, released by police, is spooking people in China. The video has been released by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), in an attempt to spread awareness of Lam's fate and maybe prevent similar mishaps.

The video, taken by a surveillance camera in one of the hotel's elevator, has gone viral on Chinese video site Youku.com; it already has more than three million views and 40,000 comments, in a little over 10 days.

The video shows Lam behaving strangely; she enters the elevator, pushes multiple buttons and then peeps out of the elevator, as if looking for an attacker. She then proceeds to step in and out of the elevator a few times.

Mid-way through the video, Lam is seen standing outside and appears to be talking to herself, while making rather elaborate hand gestures. Nobody else is seen in the video with her. She then exits the elevator and disappears from the camera's view.

Check out the video:

Read More...
Pistol

South Dakota approves guns in the classroom


RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:12 UTC
guns
© Agence France-Presse/Timothy A. Clary
Lawmakers in South Dakota have passed a bill that would allow school districts to arm staff and teachers with guns to make their schools "safer".

State Senators on Wednesday voted 21-14 to pass the measure, despite large-scale opposition from school administrators and personnel, who are largely opposed to bringing weapons into their schools.

Supporters of the bill claim that arming teachers could prevent tragedies like the Dec. 14 massacre in Newtown, Conn. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Craig Tieszen, R-Rapid City, said that he would leave the decision to arm teachers up to individual school districts, but that he strongly recommends it.

When Craig advocated for the measure earlier this year, he said that having gun-free schools would simply make them more vulnerable and invite potential mass murderers.

"The possibility of an armed presence in any of our schools is a deterrent," Craig told Fox News, claiming that no shooter would attack a school whose teachers are armed.

Supporters of the bill also argue that teachers would only become armed after partaking in a "School Sentinel program" that would provide them with firearms training by law enforcement officers. No teachers would be forced to take part in the program and could choose to remain unarmed.
Read More...